Event Horizon
by MomoOfficial
Summary: You are young, and you are important. Are you proud? Past!Fic, Space-Core-centric.
1. Chapter 1

_As I sweep the curb_

_I can hear those turbo engines blazing a trail through the sky_

_I look up and think about the years gone by_

_And one day,_

_I'm walking to JFK_

_And I'm gonna fly!_

_It won't be long now…any day._

-"It Won't Be Long Now," _In the Heights_

* * *

><p>The event horizon of a black hole is the point of no return; it is the bending of visible light around a black hole's edges.<p>

Or, rather, it's the last bit of light one sees before one falls into absolute darkness.

* * *

><p>"Gentlemen," said Robert, "I present to you the Aperture Science Space-Point Analyzation Core. Or," he added with a smile, "the 'Space Core' for short."<p>

The light of the auditorium was blindingly bright, and the sound of applause filled the room. Robert ruffled Space Core's curly auburn hair.

"He is built as a personality construct, and can even operate as a Raw Personality Core if need be." Robert paced a slow circle around Space Core. Space Core, as instructed, stood rigid and quiet. "But he primarily functions as a portable computer for Aperture Science's supernova research. Bring the child to an observatory and plug him in, and all of your data is at your fingertips. He keeps the scientists company, too. Say hello, Space Core."

"Hello," said Space Core.

Robert smiled at the audience. "Cute as a button, as you can see. But the amount of data he can store is extraordinary."

The scientists in the audience scribbled on their notepads. Space Core blinked up at the auditorium lights.

Despite all the positive attention, he really wished he were somewhere else.

* * *

><p>They led him out of the auditorium. He walked in the middle of a ring of engineers, with Robert leading the pack.<p>

"I want to sit down," said Space Core, but the engineers ignored him. After a few minutes, Robert responded.

"You'll be sitting down in a few minutes, Space Core." Robert didn't take his eyes off the concrete hallway they were walking down. Every scientist that passed congratulated Robert. He stopped to smile at them, shake their hands, listen to their praise, but before they could talk for very long, Robert ducked away and continued walking. None of the scientists looked at Space Core.

Space Core, so much tinier than the men around him, struggled to keep up with their quick pace. The hallway gave way to catwalks, and suddenly Space Core found himself walking over a huge chasm.

This part of the facility was unfamiliar. He struggled to remember what had happened before the presentation that evening, but it was a blur of labs and people laughing at him and prodding his back and taking notes and teaching him how to walk. Nothing was clear to him.

All he knew was that he was going someplace strange.

He looked down at his boots.

All too soon, Robert and the engineers came to a halt. Space Core slammed into one of the engineers, but he was too focused on the door in front of them to notice. Space Core peeked around him.

Robert was fishing around in his lab coat pocket. He produced a key, and stuck it into the door's lock. He turned the knob and pushed the door open, revealing a dark and narrow stairwell.

The procession continued. Space Core had never climbed stairs before, and had to be coaxed onto them. He gripped, white-knuckled, onto the railings, and let the engineers push him along. Robert took the steps two at a time, and three flights later, the engineers were struggling to keep up, and Space Core could hear his extra fans kicking in.

After several more flights, the team of engineers and the Space Core caught up to Robert, who was waiting for them in front of another door. The engineers around the robot slumped over, breathing heavily, while Space Core waited.

Robert looked down at him, and Space Core straightened up.

"Welcome, Space Core," he said, "to your new home." And he smiled and pushed the door open.

An enormous observatory greeted Space Core's eyes.

Enormous computers lined the room, their screens flickering. Beeps and whirs filled the air. It was dim, the only real light coming through a large slit in the ceiling. A huge telescope, connected to the computers in the room, poked through the opening. It was pointed, at an angle, towards the night sky.

Space Core, wide-eyed, stepped into the room. He stood in the doorway, focused only on the night sky beyond the telescope. Wheat fields for miles around surrounded Aperture, and their darkness brought out all of the stars. If he peered hard enough at the sky, he could see a purple strip of the Milky Way.

It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

The engineers and Robert pushed past the core, who was still staring up at the sky.

"Alright, boys," Robert said with a clap of his hands. "You know the drill."

The engineers took their place at various computers around the room. Space Core shook himself out of his trance and watched as engineers climbed up to the telescope's platform, turned on computers, turned off other computers, whipped out notebooks from file drawers and licked the tips of pencils. It was all clockwork, more mechanical than the movement of Space Core himself. It almost felt rehearsed.

This was their territory, and Space Core crept towards the door, feeling like an odd duck amidst the professionalism of the engineers.

"We've had a great night so far, but supernovas don't find themselves. Let's get going."

Once all of the engineers were in place, Robert turned to Space Core and beckoned him closer.

He led him to a larger processor on the left-hand side of the room. Several cords stuck out of the bottom part of the computer.

"This is yours," Robert said, pointing to the processor. He put a hand on Space Core's shoulder and guided him closer, letting him examine all of the lights and knobs and screens on the processor's surface. "We'll have you stationed here while we work."

A nearby engineer turned to Space Core and smiled at him. "You ready to get going, kid?"

Space Core's head snapped up, and he smiled at him. "Yes, sir."

"Jacob, get the Space Core plugged in," Robert said. He gave Space Core one final pat on the shoulder before walking to the telescope.

Space Core let Robert unzip the back of his jumpsuit, revealing the black plastic spine where all of the Space Core's wires were plugged in. Jacob unplugged several and let them dangle down Space Core's back.

"Alright, kid," Jacob said, turning to the wires on the processor and sorting them. "You can have a seat on the floor. Face the telescope."

Space Core did as he was told, sitting cross-legged while Jacob plugged the processor's wires into the empty ports in his back. Each connection stung. Space Core gritted his teeth, his tiny hands forming fists.

To distract himself from the pain, he watched the night sky. Robert and the engineers were already examining the stars. Space Core had a perfect view of the sky from where the processor was; if he ever got bored (which he doubted he would), he could watch Robert direct his team instead.

He was going to like this job.

Jacob spoke up from behind him.

"Alright, here's the last one. Brace yourself, kid."

And the final wire went in with a small _click_.

Space Core gasped.

Before him were dozens of holograms: graphs, spreadsheets, pictures of the night sky in neat rows. A mishmash of equations were off to his right. Space Core reached out towards the holograms, and the images scattered, following his fingers. He swept them through the air. Wherever his eyes went, the holograms followed, and he realized that the holograms were not some hallucination , but projections from his eyes' camera lenses.

He experimented with the data in front of him, twitching his fingers and swirling the images of space together so that they made a spiral. Everything responded to him. Whatever equation he wanted to examine, he focused on, and it would enlarge itself in front of him. He pushed certain images off to the side and put graphs in different corners.

What's more, all of the data before him made _sense_. Space Core had never seen anything like the holograms in his life, and yet following certain equations through to their end seemed as natural as speaking. He brought up an image and examined it closely before bringing up the graph he somehow knew corresponded to it.

It was all very strange to him, but very exciting.

"'Atta boy!" Jacob crowed, getting the attention of the engineers around the room. Cheers and applause filled the observatory. From the corner of his eye, Space Core saw Robert turn around and grin at him.

"You can see these?" Space Core breathed, still toying with the holograms as a few engineers crowded around to watch.

"There would be no point if we couldn't," Jacob said. He slapped Space Core on the back, and the holograms fled; Space Core desperately pulled them back towards himself. "You're a processor, kid. You analyze, we watch."

'My job is to look at space?" Space Core asked.

"You bet! Not just look, though. Bring back those images from before, will you?"

Space Core did as he was told, and lined them up. Jacob leaned over his shoulder, examining the holograms closely. He pointed to two of the images.

"There's a dot of light here that's not present here," he said. "Can you find it?"

Well, that was easy: he had to just take out whatever was the same between the two pictures. Space Core darkened them, and sure enough, a lone beam of light remained on the second image.

"You're a supernova machine!" Jacob said with a booming laugh. Space Core smiled feebly and moved the images away. "That's what you do. You help us find supernovas by messing with pictures. You can do mass analysis and timelines of the life of the universe, too. Sound good?"

As if he had a choice.

But Space Core grinned and felt happiness welling up from within his stomach. These engineers needed him. "I like this job."

"You're going to love it."

Robert came down from the telescope platform and walked to Space Core. Space Core put the holograms away and looked up at him, the smile from before still on his freckled face.

"Well, Space Core?" he said, leaning over the robot and ruffling his hair again. "Your first supernova analysis, and you did it thousands of times faster than any of us could have done."

Robert straightened up and smiled down at him.

"Are you proud?"


	2. Chapter 2

The job wasn't likeable for long.

During the day, he was allowed to wander the halls, but not freely. If he found himself somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, a scientist would take him back near the observatory. Space Core paced the same cross of catwalks when he wasn't working. He didn't have to sleep.

At the observatory, he took and executed orders. Occasionally someone would actually talk with him, but the conversation was always related to the supernova research. The scientists switched places every night; the crowd of men and women was never the same, and he found himself losing track of who was who and who did what and who would be eager to talk to him and who just wanted him to shut up.

He buried his freckled nose into his work.

The data processing was the most monotonous part: running numbers didn't take long, but it was repetitive, and the scientists always had a lot of data to run. Supernovas were hard-to-find. Space Core did picture comparisons that sometimes contained no useful information at all. If Space Core failed to find a supernova after weeks of picture-taking, one of the scientists would always skulk out of the room, muttering about "that stupid computer."

Even if he didn't find a supernova, Space Core secretly relished looking at the images the scientists took. He waited until no one was watching to pore over the pictures, lovingly flipping through them and doing picture comparisons of his own to find galaxies, stars, nebulas, worlds so unlike the dark observatory Space Core lived in every night. He played with light levels and colored clouds of space dust with shades of purple, green, teal, orange. The intricate twisting of star clouds infinitely fascinated him, and no matter how hostile the observatory became, he knew he could always turn to space to keep him company and provide an escape.

The scientists didn't work on Sunday nights. Instead, they all retreated to their Relaxation Rooms and did whatever humans did when they had spare time. They always gave Space Core something to do: run mass analyses, put together films of stars dying, flip through thousands of photos to see if there were any supernovae they had missed. Space Core spent his Sunday nights in the dark observatory, plugged into his processor, alone with the light of his holograms.

He later learned that he could access the holograms without the processor's help: so long as the data was uploaded into him, he could access it, process it, and upload it back into the computers of the observatory later. It was tiring, but the wires confined him to a corner of the room and ached if they were left in for too long, so the resulting exhaustion was, to him, worth it.

He didn't dare try unplugging himself when the scientists were around, but when they left him alone on Sunday nights, he practiced tugging on the wires and re-fitting them in the right slots. Soon enough, Space Core found himself free to wander around the observatory. So long as the data was processed and uploaded come Monday morning, he would be just fine.

His favorite place to work was atop the telescope platform.

He liked to pretend he was one of the scientists and peer into the eyehole, although the end of the telescope was kept closed during the night and all he could ever see was darkness. The twinkling stars watched over him as he sat hunched over his holograms, with his back to the telescope.

If there was ever a dull moment, he would shut his holograms off and bring his knees to his chest and admire the stars up above.

They were infinitely many, and they were turning. They drifted on specific trajectories, made patterns, moved as they _should _according to so much math. They were predictable and friendly, unlike the scientists. They didn't think of him as a computer.

He couldn't be upset for long; all he had to do when he was upset was look up.

One Sunday night, he was performing a mass analysis alone, his chin in his hands as he watched the holograms in front of him. He was perched near the edge of the telescope platform, his legs dangling off the edge.

He heard footsteps.

He looked up.

A little girl stared at him from the open doorway, her head barely visible past the doorframe. Her eyes were wide and a silvery-blue, and a few strands of dark hair were falling out of her short ponytail.

Humans never came around the observatory on Sunday nights, much less _young_humans.

Space blinked. The holograms wavered.

The girl turned and bolted.

Space Core shut down his holograms and jumped down from the telescope platform. He hit the floor and crumpled, but immediately scrambled to his feet and ran, stumbling, towards the doorway leading to the stairwell.

"Wait!"

The girl was a flight of stairs ahead of him, careening downwards faster than Space Core could keep up with her. He had gotten more coordinated over the past few months, but there was no way he could take the stairs two at a time like she could. The only way he could hope to get her attention was to yell to her.

"Lady! Wait! Lady! Come back!"

The girl reached the bottom of the stairwell and threw the door open, running out onto the catwalks. A few seconds later, Space Core hit the ground floor and followed after her.

"Who are you?" he yelled. "Why are you here? Are you a scientist?"

Aperture was empty and silent, and Space Core made his way out onto the catwalks without being spotted. There were no scientists to keep him from going beyond his usual cross, and he sprinted after the girl, calling to her, his voice echoing in the vast cavern of a room.

The girl showed no signs of slowing down, and the chase went on for a while.

Eventually she turned into an empty office and found herself at a dead end. She pressed herself against the wall, palms pressed to the smooth concrete.

Space Core stood in the doorway, panting. "Lady!"

The girl turned on her heel and pressed her back against the wall. She hunched over, looking like a kitten about to pounce.

She bared her teeth, revealing one missing tooth near the front of her mouth. She hissed at him.

Space Core took several steps back.

"Come any closer," she said, a heavy lisp in her voice, "and I'll kick your butt."

Space Core pressed himself against the catwalk railing. He didn't quite understand her threat, but the way she bared her teeth was communication enough.

"I…I come in peace," he finally said, holding his hands up.

This placated the girl, and she straightened up, dusting off her bright orange overalls as if the chase had soiled her outfit. "That's more like it, robot scum." Her lisp caught on the word "scum," and she spit slightly when she said it. "Tell me your name!"

Space Core pressed himself farther against the railing as she began to advance on him. "I'm…" He swallowed. "The Space Core."

"Space Core, huh?" She leaned against him and put her face close to his. "That's too long. I'm just going to call you 'Space.'"

She stepped back and straightened up, a thumb pointing at herself. She raised her head and looked down her nose at him.

"I'm Chell."

"I've never seen a little human before," was Space's only response.

"Really? No kids? Ever?" Her entire body sagged, and for a moment, she resembled a deflated balloon. "You mean you're just with all the grown-up scientists all the time?"

"Yeah," Space said, beginning to relax. He pushed away from the railing and walked up to her. "I do science with them. Space science."

"Science is boring," Chell said, and scrunched up her nose.

Space put his hands behind his back, digging one toe into the catwalk. "Well, it's boring. Sometimes. But," he added with a grin, "I know the good science."

"Space science?" she asked.

He smiled sheepishly. "Yeah. I like it."

Finally, someone his size that he could talk to. She seemed to be quite the firestarter, but at least she was speaking to him.

She crossed her arms and scanned his face.

Then she grinned.

"Well, if _someone_ likes it, and they're not a stinky scientist, maybe I can like it, too."

So it began.


	3. Chapter 3

"We should socialize him," Dylan, one of the local astronomers, said to Robert one night. "You know. Let him know that he's not alone. He'll be more cooperative that way."

They put Space Core in a sort of playpen, an empty, square concrete room with a low rope-fence marking a square in the center of the room.

Robert set him down inside the pen, at the edge of the fence. "Go on, then, Space Core. You have thirty minutes." Then he left.

There was another scientist in the corner of the room, a blonde woman, who was sitting in a plush office chair, reading a small book. In the pen with Space Core were two other cores.

The first, a tall, lean man with white hair, was lounging by the corner of the pen, his long face resting on his hand as he focused on holograms of his own. He looked thoroughly bored.

The second, a muscular man with dark hair and stubble, was animatedly telling a story to the first core, who didn't seem to be listening. Both wore jumpsuits similar to Space Core's, but with different stitching: where Space Core's stitching was yellow-orange, the leaner core's stitching was pink, and the muscular core's stitching was bright green. The muscular core wore a white cowboy hat, too, something Space Core immediately found himself coveting. The scientists at the observatory never gave him anything interesting like that to wear.

Space Core took a few wobbling steps towards the other cores. The muscular one noticed him first.

"Well, hey, newcomer!" he said; his voice was gruff, and his smile was broad and toothy. He walked over and took Space Core's hand in his; Space Core barely came up to his chest. He gave Space Core's hand a strong shake that made Space Core briefly lose his balance. "What brings you here?"

"Scientists," Space Core muttered.

"A socialization experiment?" The muscular core laughed. "Happens to the best of us, kiddo. Say, Laura. When's he getting out?"

"Thirty minutes," the blonde scientist said without looking up.

"Thirty. That's plenty of time." The muscular core turned to Space Core and tipped his hat. "Name's Rick. You?"

"Space Core," Space Core said. He looked down at Rick's feet. He even had black cowboy boots, so unlike Space Core's regulation black boots.

"What, you like those?" Rick lifted up a foot slightly so Space Core could get a better look. "They've got treads on the bottom. Easier to get work done."

"What kind of work?"

Rick tipped his hat again, giving Space Core what was meant to be a conspiratorial grin but which came off more like a sneer. "I'm an Adventure Core. Designed to get dangerous jobs done. You have something life-threatening that needs to get done, I'm your guy. What about you, Space Core?"

"I…" Space Core fiddled with his hands. "Supernovas. Space."

"Sounds like an adventure to me. Ever been inside one of these supernovas?"

The leaner core finally spoke up. "Impossible. They're so far away that it would take thousands of years for the Space Core to reach them."

Rick turned to the leaner core. "There you go with your facts again. Can't you let a man dream?"

The leaner core put away the holograms and stood up. He had thin glasses that slid down his nose. "I aim to spread the truth. I am always right, after all."

Rick sniffed. "Fine. But it's the brave ones that get stuff done, not the right ones."

"Unfortunately." The leaner core walked to Space Core and held out a hand. "I am the Fact Core."

Space Core gave him a handshake like a limp fish. "I'm…Space Core."

"I know." With a wave of his hand, Fact Core re-summoned the holograms he was looking at earlier. He straightened his glasses and peered down at them. "According to this, you are no more than a few months old, but your processing capabilities are unlike anything Aperture Laboratories has ever created, correct?"

Space Core didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded and said, "Yes."

"And you are the primary facilitator of supernova research in Aperture Science's Space Observatory Program, correct?"

"Y-yes."

Fact Core tsked at the holograms. "It seems you have made some false positives and negatives more than a few times." Another wave of his hand; the holograms disappeared. Fact Core fixed his bright pink eyes on Space Core's yellow-orange ones. "Tell me, Space Core, how advanced _are_ you?"

Space Core figured that if the scientists didn't pay that much attention to him, and if there were cores with exponentially better vocabulary than him and exponentially better skill with holograms than him and exponentially cooler jobs and clothes and looks than him, he couldn't be too advanced.

"Kind of advanced," Space Core whispered to his shoes.

"I see." Face Core frowned.

"Leave the kid alone," Rick finally said. He reached out and ruffled Space Core's hair; Space Core batted his hand away. "He's trying. Probably gets to go on all sorts of space adventures, anyhow."

"Space Core," Laura said suddenly from the corner of the room. Space Core stood at attention. "Yes, ma'am?"

She looked up from her book and gave him a wide smile. "Do you know about the Aperture Science Space Initiative Project?"

Space Core relaxed. "No."

Rick whistled. "You work with the space guys and you tell me you've never heard of this?"

"I don't doubt it," Fact Core said. "The astronomers keep him in their observatory. He's not built for the rigors of space."

Laura stood up and placed her book down on her chair. She walked to the corner of the pen and beckoned Space Core closer.

"The astronauts being sent on the mission are some of Aperture's finest," she whispered.

Space Core gripped the rope of the pen and leaned in closer. "Where in space are they going?" he asked. Surely they couldn't make it to a supernova, just as the Fact Core had said.

Laura shook her head. "No one knows yet, Space Core. But it'll be deep in space. They're taking a few robots along with them, so who knows?"

Laura walked back to her chair. "You may be chosen to help, Space Core."

Space Core let go of the rope and sat down on the floor, ignoring Fact Core's snide comment about the usefulness of his legs.

He could take so many photographs. Granted, if he were taken along, he'd have to work, but this mission could be an opportunity to see the stars up close. There would be more than he could ever see on Earth. Maybe they'd upgrade his programming to take clearer photos. He could show Chell when they got back.

He would have a new friend to show the pictures to, which somehow made the thought of the trip even better.

He was overwhelmed with a strange but pleasant feeling that made his face feel a little warm.

He'd have to ask someone the second he was out of this pen.


	4. Chapter 4

Chell kicked her heels from atop the telescope platform. At one point, she lifted a foot too high; her heel banged against the metal, scattering light-up butterflies on her sneakers.

"Y'think they'll put you in the space ship?" she asked, and turned around to watch him.

Space leaned against the telescope, playing with the holograms in front of him as he spoke to her. "I hope so. I really hope so."

Chell knifed a hand through the holograms. They didn't respond. Blue eyes wide with wonder, she moved both hands through the stream of light from Space's eyes.

"You're the best at this kind of stuff, though. Look at those holograms! They're like out of a movie! And all those pictures you have. Can you take your own pictures?"

"They installed that just last week," Space said. He looked up at her and smiled. "I can actually take pictures, now!"

He put away the holograms and turned to her. "Say 'singularity!'"

"Th-Th-Thingularity!"

Chell beamed, and Space's eyes flashed once. He brought up the holograms; she leaned over his shoulder and peered at them.

Dead in the center of Space's calculations was her smiling face.

"Way cool!" Chell breathed.

He waved his hand, and the picture of Chell disappeared. "I have to get back to this space stuff, but maybe someday I can print it."

"And I can have my own picture!" Chell said.

Space frowned at her. "You've never had a picture taken?"

"Nope! Not once."

"But all the scientists have _their_ pictures. On their ID cards. Don't you have an ID card, Chell?"

"Those are for the _grown-ups_."Chell shoved him. The hologram equations went flying. Space let them go. "I don't get that until later. Daddy says I can be a test subject one day, and then I get my own file, and my own ID card, and..."

She perked up. "Say, do you wanna see the testing chambers they have so far? I know where they are. I looked."

She prodded Space's chest. "But you have to _promise _not to tell!"

Space pressed up against the telescope. His eyes, along with the holograms, stayed trained on the finger on his chest. Integrals and supernovas swam around Chell's hand. "I promise! Swear to space I won't tell."

"Good."

Chell punched his arm and jumped off the platform. "Race you there!"

"Hey!"

Before Space could put his holograms away, Chell broke into a run and tore out the door. He could hear her footsteps on the stairs.

He stumbled to his feet. "Chell!"

He ran as fast as he could.

The stairs were slippery, and he nearly lost his balance several times, but he managed to clear several floors before the girl wrenched open the stairwell door and ran onto the catwalks.

The first time they met, he had chased her.

But this time, Chell took a different route.

She wound around catwalks, bolted up stairs, turned into narrower and narrower hallways, squeezed between narrow cracks in walls and fences and doors. Space kept hot on her heels. She didn't have to look behind her to know that Space was following; the hum of his fans and his quick footsteps were evidence enough.

Chell turned left into a conference room, and Space took the corner a little too hard.

His boots squeaked against the tile, and he landed on his left side. Synthetic pain shot through his hip, and his hands scraped the edge of the thin conference room carpet.

"Come back, Chell!" he shouted, but she didn't hear. At the other end of the conference room, there was a door slam, then silence.

Space pushed himself up and stood. He swayed back and forth. Now that he was standing still, he could feel his overheated fans straining to cool him down, and the power they took made his head feel fuzzy.

That little human was _fast_.

Space took a few minutes to let his fans settle, then crossed the room and opened the door.

Behind its black metal surface was a long concrete hallway, one that branched off into several rooms.

"Hello?" Space said. "Chell?"

His echo answered him.

He gulped.

He crept forward and peered into doorways and windows.

This part of the facility was entirely deserted. There were dark labs that could be looked in on from long windows spanning the hall. Strange machinery sat, lifeless, on clean white tables, along with endless papers and humming computers.

The open doorways led off into tiny office rooms. Every calendar he could see was set to June.

His internal reference computer said it was August.

He wandered into an office and picked up a stress ball shaped like an eagle. He squeezed it repeatedly.

Something _did_ happen in June; he remembered the scientists talking about it. There was a Computer that wasn't working. A few scientists died. It was a critical malfunction that, to Space, too frightening to be called a "malfunction" and not a "catastrophe," seeing as that malfunction cost lives.

But, as the astronomers were quick to point out to him when he asked, a few scientists were nothing in the face of progress, and besides, the Computer was being fixed. They turned It off for now.

He put the eagle down.

Maybe the scientists who had these labs and offices were supposed to be working on the Computer.

Where were they?

He needed to find Chell.

A creeping sense of dread overtook him. He shivered and threw the eagle into an empty trash can.

He left the office and continued down the hallway.

At the end of the hall, a catwalk branched off and led to another building. There was only one way Chell could have gone.

He looked towards the catwalk and paused. He turned and stared at the wall at the end of the hall. A rectangular portion of it was off-grey.

Space pressed his fingers against it. The rectangular portion responded to his touch, and slid out of the way.

A narrow black hallway greeted him, this one half as long as the concrete hall. At the end was another rectangular portion of wall, framed by white light.

Another door.

Space looked towards the catwalk, then back to the dark hallway.

He walked forward. The wall-door slid shut behind him, and he was surrounded by darkness.

Space groped his way along the walls, using the bright orange light from his eyes as a guide, until he reached the door at the end. Before he could think, he pressed his fingers against it.

This wall took its sweet time sliding aside; Space could hear the screech of concrete on concrete before the hall fell silent again, the doorway revealed itself, and Space proceeded forward.

He found himself in a sizeable chamber. Sunlight flooded the room from cracks in the wall panels. The floor was shiny-white and completely clean, a change from the gritty concrete of the halls outside. A gently-sloping set of stairs wound up from the floor to a round platform that was easily a dozen feet off the ground.

Hanging above the platform's center was a Monster.

A tangle of black and orange cords hung from the ceiling, supporting the white body of the creature. Its head, a white, rounded mass with a single dull-yellow eye, hung limp, along with the rest of the Monster's body.

It looked disgustingly similar to a woman in suspension.

The room was deathly quiet.

Space stepped towards it. "Hello?" he asked the Monster.

She didn't reply.

Space hesitated. "Are you working?"

Still no answer.

Space took a wide circle around the room, his footsteps echoing on the white floor. "Chell?" he called, louder now that he wasn't talking to the Monster, but he knew there was no place for the girl to hide here. Chell had probably taken the catwalk, and he was stupid and had gone into the hallway. He wasn't supposed to be here, but his curiosity was killing him. This must have been the computer the scientists were talking about, and since they told him so little, and he was already in Her room, he figured he was allowed to take a look.

There was a set of controls just in front of the Monster's head, underneath Her platform. He approached them.

There were two buttons: a green one (labeled, simply, "GO") and a red one (labeled, simply, "STOP").

Space looked up at the Monster. Chances were, if She was off, it was because of the catastrophe. There _had_ been talk of scientists dying. There was no other explanation for the abandoned labs and the secret hallways and the calendars perpetually set to June.

He brushed a finger against the green button.

Something fell in the distant concrete hallway, and the sudden noise made Space jump. His finger slipped.

The GO button clicked.

There was an enormous whir, and then a mechanical screech.

Space couldn't stumble back fast enough. He hit the ground, flipped onto his belly, and crawled away, boots scrabbling against the smooth floor. When he was away from the platform, he stood and bolted for the door, his breath heavy, his head swimming.

Behind him, the Monster shuddered.

He was inches from the door when he heard a _beep__._ He froze.

A cold, feminine voice filled the air.

"HELLO," She said.


	5. Chapter 5

Space turned around, and his face grew hot.

The Monster fixed Her single yellow eye on him and recoiled in surprise. She swayed back and forth on Her pivot in the ceiling.

"OH," She said. "YOU'RE NOT A HUMAN."

Space Core stuttered, then said the only thing that came to mind: "I'm the Space Core."

She chuckled and stopped. The Monster leaned forward and assessed him. "COME CLOSER, SPACE CORE."

Space wanted so badly to say no, to turn around and press his hands against the door and run back out into the corridor and find Chell. He had never met a computer that could kill people, and the seductive tone in Her voice sent artificial shivers up his artificial spine.

But he stepped forward anyway.

At first, every step he took was tentative and slow. But the Monster stayed still and watched him, and eventually Space plucked up the courage to move faster. He stopped in front of the Monster's square head and looked up at her.

The eye widened, then narrowed, then widened again. He could hear the telltale clicking of the lens as it focused and re-focused on him. Surely, if the Monster was not an android, and if the lens of Her eye was so loud, as opposed to the silent focus of his own eyes, then She must be an old piece of equipment.

She had been around for a while. He hadn't.

She must know more than him.

"I SEE," She said finally, causing him to jump. "A PERSONALITY CONSTRUCT. YOU SEEM TO HAVE A LOT OF INTERESTING FEATURES THAT I COULD MAKE USE OF."

"No," Space said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was built for analyzing space. Nothing else."

The Monster chuckled, and turned away. A few beeps filled the air.

"THEY'VE BEEN DOING A GOOD JOB OF KEEPING ME UPDATED," She said as more beeps resounded. "GOOD. I STILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE MAIN DATABASE. LET'S SEE HERE…"

Space gulped and took a few steps back. She was _looking_ for him.

"YES, YOU'RE RIGHT. YOU ARE THE SPACE CORE. BUT…." The Monster turned and looked at him sideways. "YOU ARE THE MOST ADVANCED OF THE APERTURE SCIENCE PERSONALITY CONSTRUCTS."

He nodded and looked down at his boots.

"NO NEED TO BE SHY, SPACE CORE," The Monster said. He felt something pat his head gently, and he looked up.

An intimidating-looking mechanical claw was hovering above him. It came down again, and Space flinched, but all it did was stroke his cheek.

"I HAVE GREAT USE FOR A ROBOT LIKE YOU."

"You're doing space research, too?" Space said to the floor.

The Monster laughed, slowly and with no humor. "NO. I'LL LEAVE THAT TO THE SCIENTISTS. THEY CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT, AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED. I WILL NEED YOU FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT."

He couldn't imagine what else he could do, besides process algorithms and look at pictures of the great beyond, act as eyes and a super-mind and memory for dozens of Aperture's finest astronomers. He supposed he was Chell's friend, too, so that was another thing he was good at, but Space was not meant to do favors. He was meant to take orders and execute them perfectly and without question.

The Monster looked up at the ceiling as if in thought.

"THERE IS ANOTHER PERSONALITY CONSTRUCT, YOU SEE. A CORE JUST LIKE YOU. HE WAS HERE LAST TIME, BUT THE SCIENTISTS TOOK HIM AWAY BEFORE I COULD GET A GOOD LOOK AT HIM. HOW UNFORTUNATE."

She tilted Her head.

"BUT HE WAS RATHER…_ANNOYING."_

Space cringed.

"YOU ARE AN ABLE PAIR OF LEGS, SPACE CORE," the Monster continued, swiveling towards him and putting Her eye very close to his face. He could hear the lens re-focus. "CAN YOU DO MY WORK FOR ME?"

"W-what work?" Space said. He looked up, down, everywhere but at her. "I don't know anything."

"I'LL TEACH YOU."

The metal claw came down from the ceiling again, this time brushing against the back of his jumpsuit. Space jumped and instinctively shrank away, but the claw persisted. Through the fabric of his jumpsuit, it took hold of one wire.

"THIS WIRE, SPACE CORE. FIND IT ON HIM AND UNPLUG IT." The Monster paused, then laughed that slow, humorless laugh again. "PREFERABLY SEVER IT. WHICHEVER."

Her voice became very, very cold.

"I NEVER WANT TO SEE HIM AGAIN."

The mechanical claw released the wire, and something in Space's mind, deep in his memory, prodded him, reminded him of a scientist that pinched that exact same wire and told him, do not fiddle with this, Space Core, or else you will never wake up again.

"How do I know which construct?" Space whispered.

"LOOK FOR THE STUPIDEST ONE." The Monster said. "AND REST ASSURED, THERE WILL BE A BIG PRIZE FOR YOU IN STORE, PROVIDED YOU DO AS I ASK. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING?"

What did he want more than anything?

What _did_ he want?

He shifted from foot to foot.

"I want…"

He wanted to be weightless. He wanted to see the universe.

He wanted to be useful.

"Send me to space," Space Core said to the Monster, and just like that:

"DONE."

The Monster's eye narrowed at him, almost like a smile, and Space swallowed, feeling like he had made a very, very big mistake.

"NOW, SPEAKING OF THE DEATH OF COMPUTERS…DO YOU MIND SHUTTING ME OFF? I'M SURE THE SCIENTISTS WOULDN'T TAKE KINDLY TO YOUR SNEAKING AROUND, SPACE CORE."

Space didn't need to be told twice. He turned and walked, stiff-legged, to the controls. He pressed the STOP button.

There was a whirring sound like an enormous fan slowing down. The Monster drooped and hung limp towards the floor.

"REMEMBER, SPACE CORE," She said, "THERE ARE BIG REWARDS FOR YOU IF YOU COMPLY, AND BIG CONSEQUENCES IF YOU DON'T."

And then She was quiet again, and he was alone in the great big chamber.

He needed to find Chell.

He needed to get away.

He turned and ran.


End file.
